The present invention relates to local area network systems in which simultaneous voice, data and video communication between an initiating and recipient device located within the same or distinct nodes is accomplished. Since any such system must have the capability for connecting any station with another station within the entire coverage area of the network, a great deal of complexity can be rapidly built into the system in order to provide such full service coverage. Utilizing digital processing techniques and available logical processor capabilities, it is possible to accommodate the demands of such networking to a great extent.
Efficient utilization of even a processor based networking system requires the efficient interplay of: (1) a directory function to identify, from an enormous repertory of subscriber addresses, a desired address for an identified recipient device from any initiating device; (2) the processing of that information to establish and maintain the communication link between the initiating and recipient devices; and (3) the function of information exchanger for a large number of simultaneous exchanges.
These substantial demands can and have been met in the past by expensive arrays of processing capability utilizing in some cases multiple processors and shared processing capacity.